If you've ever spent ten minutes hunting for a specific clip you remember shooting but can't find in your browser, this is for you. FCP has a built-in organisational system that most editors barely use, and it solves this problem entirely.
Rate your clips as you review
After importing footage, skim through your clips in the Browser and press F to mark a range as a Favourite. Press Delete to mark it as Rejected. You can mark specific ranges within a clip, not just the whole thing. Favourited ranges show with a green bar; rejected with a red bar.
This alone is useful: filter your Browser to show only Favourites and you're working from your best material from the start of the edit. But it gets better.
Keyword Collections
Press Cmd+K to open the Keyword Editor. Select a range or clip and assign a keyword: "Interview," "B-roll," "Wide Shot," "Unusable," whatever makes sense for your project. Keywords create collections in the Library sidebar that act like bins. Select the "Interview" collection and you see only interview clips, regardless of which event they live in.
Smart Collections
Smart Collections are dynamic: they automatically populate based on rules you set. Go to File → New Smart Collection and set rules like: Rating is Favourite AND Keywords includes "Interview." Now you have a collection that always shows your best interview clips, and it updates automatically as you rate and keyword more footage.
The search field is faster than you think
The Browser's search field at the top searches clip names, keywords, and notes simultaneously. If you've been naming your clips descriptively when you import (even something basic like adding the location or subject), a quick search will pull them up in seconds. Combined with keywords, the Browser becomes genuinely fast to navigate even on large projects.
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